‘Thought you might be hungry,’ screamed the bird.
Raphael held the thing up in the moonlight. It was a fish.
I am an eagle. I must do as the eagles do, reasoned the boy. At least this will keep me from starving.
But the limp fish in his hand did not bring him any desire to eat.
I wonder, he thought, whether this was one of my friends under the ocean. Meanwhile he held the fish almost at arm’s length.
In a few moments, however, hunger overcame distaste, and he began to eat. Raw fish had its advantages. It was filling. Cats like raw fish.
When he had finished, Raphael wiped his hands carefully upon his feather suit and looked about, lulled by the rise and fall of the great wings. The moon, pale and remote, hung like a silver plate in the sky.
The boy wondered how the eagle knew where he was going. He remembered dimly that mariners guide their ships over the sea at night by the aid of stars. A meteor fell in a slow blaze of sparks across the sky. Once he had been on a boat at night....
When Raphael woke, it was early morning. In the east the sun was rising, to the west, land rimmed the horizon. Near at hand flew another eagle.
‘Have they found the Sorcerer?’ called Raphael, wide awake.